The conventional progressive wisdom is that the Trump Administration will be bad for cities and for transit users. But in recent decades, a unified Republican government has been better for public transit than a divided government.

An efficient and equitable transport system must be diverse to serve diverse travel demands. Planners need better tools to quantify and communicate the benefits of walking, cycling and public transit to sometimes skeptical decision makers.

Development

When planners are looking to find out what kind of developments residents like, one way is to ask them to weigh in. Planner Clement Lau shares key lessons learned about conducting and creating surveys as part of the planning process.

The concept of surveying residents to get their take on a development may seem like a simple idea, but it is no easy task. Planner Clement Lau shares key lessons learned about conducting and creating surveys as part of the planning process.

Adding 1,100 people every month, Washington D.C. is in the midst of one of the nation’s most powerful examples of population growth. A recently developed heat map shows where supply is being built to meet the new demand.

A study due out this month from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy captures for the first time the relative benefits of investment in bus rapid transit in spurring development. BRT outperforms both light rail and streetcars.

The increasing scarcity of affordable accommodation in large cities has seen the rise of the 'micro apartment'. Taking its lead from studios but on a much smaller scale, this article questions the appeal of living in a space of less than 15m2.

Rather than continually build new towns on the outskirts of today's cities or struggle with creating a sense of place in newly constructed environments, could we resurrect old settlements to connect the old with the new?

In the three steps of placemaking, crafting a meaningful vision is the first and most straightforward, yet it's the most under-leveraged. Continuing his series on "Municipal Placemaking Mistakes," Nathan Norris describes how to get it right.

Greetings
from Manila where I'm attending the Asian Development Bank's Transport Forum 2012.
It is an exciting and important event: the types of transport planning
investments that the bank supports now can have huge impacts on the nature of
future development in the world’s fastest growing countries. This is an
opportunity to support truly sustainable development.

Amanda Hurley explores the gender imbalance present among women in architecture and the "male-dominated world" of development, and questions the societal and biological justifications that many argue are determinants for choosing professional roles.

In his new book, The Conundrum, David Owen pierces the magical thinking that has repackaged high-end luxury goods, such as hybrid cars, as virtuous and the idea that we can consume our way out of trouble.

Urbanized is a feature-length documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers.

NIMBYism served a purpose once, says Scott Doyon, preventing all sorts of heinous projects from being built. But eventually, it became about stopping ALL change. Doyon has some recommendations for changing course.

Despite 40 percent fewer employees, the department recently announced a reform plan to expedite the development approval process by bringing the city's Planning Department and the Department of Building and Safety under one roof.

Healthy children grow bigger, but once people reach maturity at about age 20 continued physical growth is harmful - it makes us fat. It is certainly possible to develop our skills, strength and knowledge, but most adults should not pursue growth as an end in itself. This also applies to communities.

Cisco is contributing technology to Songdo City in South Korea, a brand new and complete city for a million people. China plans to build hundreds of these "cities-in-a-box" as a massive rural-to-urban migration occurs there.

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